Welcome Richard Barley - our new Community Manager

“If the person you are talking to doesn’t appear to be listening, be patient. It may simply be that he has a small piece of fluff in his ear.”

The last twelve months have seen TweetDeck grow from a personal solution to Iain’s overwhelming Twitter stream, to by far and away the most popular desktop Twitter client in the world. And with the addition of a suite of complementary services, TweetDeck is truly becoming the browser for the real-time web, as well as a great Twitter client.

This huge growth, particularly over the last few months, has been incredibly exciting but also very challenging. Back in the summer of 2008, when only a few hundred people were using Tweetdeck, engaging with this community and responding to their enquiries was an easy enough task for Iain to undertake alongside developing the product. However, as the userbase has grown, so has the volume of emails, tweets and general cries for help, leaving him, reluctantly, with that small piece of fluff in his ear.

So today I am delighted to be able to announce that Iain has appointed me, Richard Barley, as the new TweetDeck Community Manager, with responsibility for removing that piece of fluff and becoming the voice of the community within TweetDeck and the voice of TweetDeck within the community.

Many of you may know me from the “unofficial” support I have been giving over the last few months on  http://richardbarley.com and through my tweets. I have been helping out just because I really love TweetDeck and I felt Iain needed a hand. Well now it’s all official and I am making it my mission to help you, the awesome TweetDeck community, make the most of TweetDeck. 

In terms of getting help, the usual methods will remain: email  hello@tweetdeck.com, send tweets to  @tweetdeck or  @richardbarley or log an issue at  http://tweetdeck.uservoice.com. Responding to these channels will be my primary focus initially, although my remit covers more than just support and you will be hearing a lot more from me on how we will be developing other aspects of the TweetDeck community very soon.

So for now I just want to say “welcome” to you all, as we start a new and exciting phase in the development of the product that we love. I am very excited to be working with both the TweetDeck team and you, the community, to help make TweetDeck into the ultimate browser for the real-time web.

Cheers!

Richard